Recently there has been a widespread proliferation of satellite communications systems throughout the world. A large number of consumers have acquired satellite communications equipment for home reception of satellite broadcast television signals in addition to many businesses having acquired such equipment for the purpose of receiving and/or transmitting useful business information.
Typically, satellite communications systems have been constructed using a combination of RF circuitry, IF and baseband circuitry. A common trend in the art is to implement the IF and baseband modules using one or more FPGAs and/or ASICs. A disadvantage of this is that it is difficult or even impossible to perform some techniques that are only possible to perform in software. Attempting to perform these techniques in circuitry, if possible, would result in large, complex and expensive silicon.
Thus it is desirable to have a satellite modem wherein the receiver portion is mainly implemented in software so as to reduce cost, making necessary changes much simpler to perform and potentially reducing the size of the receiver.